Google + Tele Atlas = 5 Years
Google and Tele Atlas announced this morning that Google has signed a five year agreement with Tele Atlas to continue using their digital map data. A couple of statements in the announcement caught my eye as particularly interesting.
First was this sentence:
The agreement spans Google’s current and future map-based services and navigation offerings across mobile, online and desktop environments.
That was my emphasis on the term “navigation offerings”. Is this something new, or are they referring to an existing technology?
But the second, more straight forward, and more interesting statement was this:
The agreement also gives Tele Atlas access to edits for its maps from Google’s community of users, whose suggested changes can help the company further increase the quality and richness of Tele Atlas maps.
So now not only will Tele Atlas be getting feedback from millions of TomTom MapShare users but it seems like user edits and corrections from Google users is in the pipeline as well. I wonder how Tele Atlas will be able to process all of the data they receive. Bill Henry, CEO of Tele Atlas went on to say this:
“This agreement is important too because it gives us access to input from a significant online community of map users, whose feedback can help us keep our maps fresh and accurate.”
It will be fun to watch how that pans out!
